Glad? Well, Yes

When I opined the other day that mandating smaller class sizes as a national goal would be the best available educational reform—better, specifically, than trying to figure out which teachers are good or bad—I had no idea that, elsewhere in the building, Malcolm Gladwell was putting the finishing touches on a piece that says exactly the opposite. As usual with a Gladwell piece, it’s delightful. It didn’t convince me that I was wrong (though it did give me pause), because the remedies it implicitly proposes are complicated and labor-intensive compared to just counting heads. But, also par for the Gladwell course, it taught me some things I had no idea I was going to learn when I started reading—in this case, things about the differences between professional and college football and the qualities each demands of quarterbacks. Who knew? Malcolm is a marvel. It’s no accident that he swims in a golden lake bigger than Uncle Scrooge’s, while the rest of us fear to open our 401(k) envelopes. He notices head-spinning connections invisible to us non-Malcolms, leads us deep into the surprising minutiae of other people’s jobs, and gives us new ways of thinking about familiar phenomena. So what if whatever startling thesis he happens to be advancing doesn’t always apply to every situation? Isn’t it enough that he provokes thought and gives pleasure? Not long ago I found myself at lunch with a bunch of students at Covenant College, an evangelical Christian seat of learning high atop Lookout Mountain, Georgia. These aren’t necessarily the most worldly kids on the planet, or the most liberal, but they know their Gladwell. Three or four of them were already reading “Outliers,” his latest No. 1 bestseller, and the rest were aware of its main point—that without a lot of luck, and without the right sociopolitical conditions, individual talent and hard work do not guarantee success. This led to a discussion of why the kinds of changes advocated by the incoming Administration (and opposed by the outgoing one) might not be so terrible after all. And of course they knew all about “The Tipping Point” and “Blink.” As do we all.

Hendrik Hertzberg is a senior editor and staff writer at The New Yorker. He regularly blogs about politics.